


Natural Lines of Drift

by TetrodotoxinB



Category: Captain America (Movies), Hawaii Five-0 (2010), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abduction, Bucky having the mother of all trust issues, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical death of Auntie Mele, Gen, Gunshot Wounds, Off-screen torture, mild medical treatment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-02-28 15:44:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18759457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TetrodotoxinB/pseuds/TetrodotoxinB
Summary: After the events at Coral Prince, Kono takes more than just a passing interest in the inhabitants of the Northshore homeless encampment. But there’s one man, Kanuha, who doesn’t seem to appreciate the attention. Of course that just means she makes it her goal to win him over.Bucky has spent fifteen good, HYDRA-free years getting back to living under the Hawaiian sun. He’s happy, he’s warm, and best of all he can do something good by helping the people in the camp where he lives. Being on the run comes at the cost of having friends but he doesn’t need those anyway. At least he doesn’t until some local cop makes gaining his trust her top priority.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from a term snipers use to indicate the trajectory that a target is most likely to traverse given the terrain (i.e. target walks in such a way to avoid natural obstacles like rivers and dense forests; instead sticking to game tracks, hill tops, and river banks).
> 
> In writing, the use of this terminology for the title of the piece is what we would call a “metaphor.” ;)
> 
> Many thanks to [ICouldDoThisAllDay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/icoulddothisallday/pseuds/icoulddothisallday) and [Chibisquirt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiSquirt/pseuds/ChibiSquirt) for letting me scream at them and for their generally plotty help. 
> 
> Also, I want to thank [Zoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoe_Alden) for her 8001 grammatical fixes. This wouldn't half as readable without her valuable insights. (Of course, I edited behind her and probably botched a few things so any remaining mistakes are undoubtedly mine.)

It’s the third time in two weeks Kono’s had to go up to the Northshore encampment for vandalism. She doesn’t mind the trip, but she _does_ mind the constant disruption of these people’s lives. Still, it’s a good chance to see Ben and as often as she’s up there, she’s getting to know the regulars pretty well.

Or at least she thought she was.

“Who’s that?” Kono asks Ailani while they haul a tarp full of trash to the dumpster.

“Oh, him?” Ailini shrugs. “Everyone calls him Kanuha.”

Kono laughs. “Sulky?”

Ailani shrugs again. “Well, look at him.”

And after they dump the contents of the tarp Kono does look at him. She has to admit, he is pretty sulky.

“So what do you know about him?”

Kono’s been prying into everyone’s everything for the past few weeks, ever since Ben brought her up to the camp and told her about the vandals. Her nosiness has been tolerated since she always returns with whatever the people say is most needed. And honestly, Ailani’s the village gossip so she doesn’t mind.

“Nothing. No one does. Iokua says he’s a vet. Could be. Kanuha wears a burn sleeve the length of his left arm and never takes off his shirt. I think he’s trying to hide whatever’s underneath.”

Kono hums thoughtfully and lets it go because Ben is foolishly trying to set up Auntie Kalea’s new tent by himself while a stiff breeze threatens to send both it and him sailing down the beach.

*****

It’s another two weeks before Kono sees Kanuha again. He’s still wearing his burn sleeve and the horrible ratty thing that’s supposed to pass for a shirt. 

“Auntie, how long has Kanuha been sleeping in that tent?” Kono asks while she stirs the rice over Kalea’s fire.

“Oh, child. I don’t remember. He’s been here since before most of us and I’ve been out here twelve years now.”

“You think he’d like a new one?” Kono’s getting good at waving her badge around at warehouses and surplus stores, even thrift markets and yardsales, and magically acquiring supplies for the camp for free.

Auntie Kalea laughs. “Keiki, he probably won’t even look at you, but you’re welcome to ask him if it suits you.”

Kono’s brow furrows. Kanuha might keep to himself but everyone in the camp is ohana, or at least that’s what Ben had said. “Does he cause problems?”

“Oh, no, no. I didn’t mean to say that. Just that he doesn’t talk. Ever. To anyone. But he’s still ohana in his own way. He spears fishes and leaves most of his catch up here for us. Makes sure no one, especially not the keikis here, ever goes hungry.”

Kono nods. If there’s one thing she’s learned about vets — if Kanuha even is one — is that they bury it deep. Steve is a prime example. But she still hates to see him so alone and in such obvious need of new gear. She wants to go talk to him right then, but it’s already dark on the beach, and if he’s got PTSD then all she would do is scare him.

_Morning it is,_ she decides.

*****

Kono wakes as the first rays of sun peek over the horizon. She’s more of a morning person than most, if only because of years and years of surfing. Quietly, she slips out of the tent and finds her way to the bathroom, and then she waits up on a rock by the edge of the sand for Kanuha to appear. 

Like her, he’s up early. True to form, he’s got his speargun in hand and a large knife strapped to his right ankle. She watches as he wades into the surf and swims out. By the time he dives, he’s barely visible. Kono waits. 

And waits.

And waits. 

The sun is up enough to really illuminate the water and he’s not coming back up. To her right the camp is slowly coming to life, but she scans the water with increasing panic, searching for any sign of Kanuha. She knows that after this long she’s not rescuing anyone, not that far out. It’s a recovery at best. 

She kicks off her sandals and peels out of her tank top and shorts, her bikini still underneath, and heads towards the water.

But before she even reaches the water there he is, halfway back to shore, his shoulder length black hair half over his face. The mesh bag on his back looks pretty full. Kono wonders how she missed him. He had to have surfaced three or four times and somehow she missed him each time. It doesn’t make sense, but either way he’s not dead.

Crisis averted, Kono decides she’s pretty underdressed for this of day, any time of day really if she’s not going swimming, so she slips her clothes back over her bathing suit. The rock where she’s been sitting is warming steadily with the morning sun so she sits back down to enjoy the sun on her skin.

And she watches Kanuha.

Ailani’s bet on him being a vet seems legit. Kono’s seen hired assassins who walk with less intent in their stride. 

He slings his bag around to his front and leaves a fish in the pots outside every tent with children. There are a couple of others, too: Auntie Kalea and another old lady, Margaret, both of whom are infirm and depend on the camp to stay alive. Kono’s glad to see that Kanuha’s a part of the community in his own way. 

When he’s handed out all but one of the fish, he zips his bag, and he turns to face Kono. It’s clear that he knows she’s been watching him this entire time and the realization hits her like a bucket of ice water. For a brief moment when their eyes lock, she feels frozen to the spot, all the warmth of the morning draining from around her. 

And then he turns and disappears through the camp as though he’d never been there to begin with. Kono blinks and scans around the camp for any sign of him, but he’s gone. She shakes off her momentary torpor, but gives him a couple minutes headstart.

She knows from yesterday that his tent is just east of the main encampment, between a little copse of trees and the embankment that leads up to the road. Quietly, since most of the camp is still asleep, she picks her way toward his little outpost. 

As she clears the outer boundary of Kanuha’s space, Kono can see him squatting in front of a fire pit near his tent, about fifty yards up ahead.

“Kanuha!” she calls, announcing her approach. He looks up and shifts, but doesn’t move.

“Hey, Kanuha, I’ve got a question,” she says more quietly as she gets closer.

He shifts into a crouch and Kono stops short, her hands in the air. “Hey, I was just gonna ask about your tent. Auntie Kalea says you’ve had the same one a long time. I’ve got a guy who gives me free supplies for the camp, I was gonna see if you wanted a new one or if maybe there were some other things you could use.”

Kanuha continues staring for a moment, like he’s considering Kono, and then straightens up, taking a few steps towards Kono. She gets the feeling that she’s not the first life he’s weighed before. It’s not an easy or comfortable sensation.

“You take care of them,” he says quietly, his voice scratchy with obvious disuse. 

Kono nods. “They deserve someone who can back them up.”

Kanuha nods slowly. 

“Ailani and Auntia Kalea say you do a lot for people here: provide fish, help put tents back up after storms, repair things, even run off bad types that would endanger the camp. I just wanted to know if you wanted a little help of your own.”

Kanuha’s blue eyes are piercing in their intensity, and he stands so still that Kono wonders _exactly_ what he was trained for; it’s certainly not civilian life. But then he turns and walks away without saying a word.

He crouches back down next to the fire, his face turned away from her. She takes another step towards him again, and then suddenly he’s on his feet, his right hand gripping a knife Kono had missed before.

She puts her hands back up and steps away. “I’m going. I’m leaving. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

He seems to deflate at that, but the knife doesn’t disappear this time. Kono notices that he holds it the way Steve does. She wonders briefly if she should send Steve to talk to him instead since there’s something there, something in Kanuha that’s in Steve too, but she immediately discards that idea as stupid. They’d probably both pull a knife and someone would end up short an eye. Best to leave that alone for now.

She makes a mental note to round him up a tent, a canvas, a new speargun, and some goddamn clothes that were manufactured sometime within the last five years. Nothing says “I promise not to kill you” like some good old fashioned survival gear.

*****

It’s another week before Kono gets back up to the Northshore camp, and it’s been a helluva week. The whole General Pak debacle plus Steve’s SEAL buddy trying to kill them all — it’s a relief to get away from work. 

She sits on the rock where she watched Kanuha last week and waits until he’s well into the surf before hopping down. The stuff she got for him ended up being heavier than she expected; the guy at the surplus store was a lot more willing to part with the good stuff at a discounted rate for a vet with PTSD than he was for garden-variety homeless folks. She hustles, not relishing the idea of him catching her leaving stuff near his tent, and after two trips to her car and back, she’s got it all. Kanuha’s just coming out of the surf as she walks back into camp, and he stares at her in a way that’s half curiosity and half threat. But even after years on the circuit and countless fake smiles and press junkets, Kono blanches in the face of his scrutiny and quickly heads back to her tent with Ben. 

Ben, for his part, is all too happy to pull Kono back over for some lazy morning kisses, and after a few minutes, the threat of imminent bodily harm all but vanishes from her mind.

*****

Auntie Kalea’s hands, bent from a decade with untreated rheumatism, can no longer grip the handle of her filet knife, so Kono guts the fish Kanuha left for her while Kalea washes the rice. 

“He’s on your rock, you know.”

Kono looks up. “Hmm?”

“Kanuha — he’s sitting on that rock you like.”

Kono glances over, and sure enough, he is. He’s also staring at her like he — somehow — overheard their conversation. 

“Go talk to him,” Kalea advises.

Kono considers it for moment. “After I finish cleaning your fish, Auntie.”

*****

Kanuha’s looking out over the slowly rolling waves when Kono finishes getting Kalea’s lunch ready and walks over. He doesn’t turn to look at her this time, but even so, she doesn’t make the same mistake as last time, sitting in the sand a few yards away, instead. 

“Do you need help setting up your new tent?” Kono asks quietly.

“No,” he answers.

“No you don’t need help because you’ve already done it, or no you don’t need help because you don’t like the tent?”

“I already did it.”

Kono nods. It’s a tent, not rocket science. 

“The speargun and the clothes-”

“Are good,” he finishes. “Thank you.”

“Hey, you’re welcome. If there’s anything else -”

“Who are you?” Kanuha asks and Kono has to fight the urge to laugh. It’s an almost-comical question coming from someone with a name no one knows.

“Kono.”

“I know your name. _Who_ are you?”

“I work with 5-0. It’s like being a cop but with more power.”

“And with that power you’re giving homeless people tents?” Kanuha sounds skeptical as hell. Kono doesn’t blame him.

“Hey, it’s cop power, not economic magic. I can’t just fix the housing market in Hawaii because I got a badge.”

Kanuha rearranges himself on the rock but doesn’t reply. Kono’s got all day, so she waits. When he gets up and leaves, Kono realizes she’s going to need more than just today, but they’re on island time so it doesn’t matter.

*****

“Why are you crying?” 

Kono starts and looks up. Kanuha is standing in front of her, wearing a pair of the board shorts and one of the t-shirts she’d picked up for him. He’s also sporting a frown and a forehead full of creases. 

She shakes her head. “Rough day at work.”

Somehow, Kanuha looks even more concerned, his blue eyes softening. He looks at her consideringly, his head tipped slightly to the side like a curious puppy, and then hops up on the rock next to her, setting his bag of fish behind them. “Tell me.”

It’s not _exactly_ how Kono would approach someone who’s crying, but Kanuha isn’t much for social skills. She tells him about Chin, about the bomb and Hesse, about how Hesse hurt Steve. She tells him how she shot Hesse and how Hesse burned the cash. She doesn’t tell him what that means, though he seems to know anyway.

“I don’t know where you got the cash, but that’s gonna come back to bite you in the ass.”

Kono chuckles wetly. “Not today.”

Kanuha “hmm”s thoughtfully and says. “You’re still new at it.”

Kono wipes her eyes and looks at him. “New at what?”

“Hurting people. You’re good at it, but it still makes you feel like shit.”

“If it doesn’t I think that’s probably a bad sign,” she counters.

“Probably.”

Kono can hear the camp starting to wake up. The way Kanuha hears everything, she knows he hears it, too, but instead he just sits with her and waits. 

“Does it ever get easier to sleep at night?” she finally ventures.

“I’m the wrong person to ask.”

“About killing or sleeping?”

For a moment, Kono thinks maybe, even with everything they’ve been sharing, she’s pushed too far. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”

Kanuha shrugs. “Who’s your teacher?”

“Teacher?”

“Marksmanship.”

“Oh, uh, I’m mostly self-taught. I have a couple books, and I spend some time on the range when I’m off work, but I don’t really have a teacher,” she answers.

Kanuha side-eyes her, but doesn’t say anything. 

“What?”

“You missed,” Kanuha says with certainty.

“Excuse me?”

“Hesse. You missed.”

Kono laughs, astonished, and swipes at her eyes. “He’s in the hospital! How’s that missing?”

“Well, he’s not exactly dead,” Kanuha points out.

Kono raises an eyebrow. “You going somewhere with this?”

“You need someone to teach you.”

“Are you offering?”

Kanuha’s jaw works back and forth for a minute before he nods. “Yeah, I am. Let me hand out these fish, and I’ll teach you a thing or two about handling a weapon.” 

Kono eyes him carefully. He’s kind and honest — about the things he’ll talk about anyway — and Kono _wants_ to trust him. He looks out for the people of his camp, and according to them, he’s never done wrong by any of them. But this is also the first real conversation they’ve had that didn’t involve staring contests or knives. She decides to err on the side of caution.

“Let me call my boss, let him know I’m gonna be raiding the weapons locker; then we can head up to the range.”

Kanuha nods. “Sounds good. Let me pass out breakfast and change into something dry.”

“Use the hairbrush I left you!” she calls after he starts to walk away.

He turns, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t need to brush my hair,” he says lowly.

Kono laughs. “Kanuha, if there was anyone on this island who needed to brush their hair, it’d be you.”

There’s a flash of what Kono suspects was Kanuha’s middle finger, and then he turns, hurrying through camp on his morning fish delivery.


	2. Chapter 2

Kanuha turns out not only to be extraordinarily knowledgeable about firearms but also a decent teacher.

“How often do you rapid-fire your rifle?”

Kono looks up from where she’s lying in the dirt. “When I breach, nearly every time I engage. When I’m sniping, not often.”

“It shows; your breathing is wrong. Hand it here.”

Kono rolls over and stands up, hefting the rifle up and handing it over. There’s a moment where she’s worried, handing over a high-powered weapon like this to someone whose name she still doesn’t know, but then he levels the gun like it weighs nothing and fires. 

Six shots ring out and Kono looks through the spotter but there aren’t any new holes in the target. “You missed.”

“No, I didn’t. Look down-field.”

She looks again at the “75 yds” target. She moves ahead to the 100, 125, 150, 175, and finally 200 yard marker. Right in the middle is a tight grouping of six perfectly aimed shots.

“How the hell…”

Kanuha chuckles. “Practice. Now let’s work on your breathing.”

Kono spends the next ten minutes sitting cross-legged with Kanuha, clapping her hands at the right points in her breathing. They move onto dry firing from there and finally to live ammo. After a few shots, she gets the hang of it.

“Okay, hot-shot. You’re totally right. This _does_ feel more natural.”

Kanuha nods and smiles, but without any hint of ribbing. “Your grouping is better, too.”

Kono smiles. It’s always satisfying to improve her technique, but knowing that this could help save the people she works with, she’s beyond grateful to Kanuha 

They shoot a while longer, burning through the rest of the box of ammo Kono had grabbed from the office. Afterwards they sit together and Kanuha breaks down the rifle with more ease than Steve. It’s eerie and implies a much different life than the one Kono sees him lead on the Northshore.

“Can I ask you a question?” she ventures as they clean the rifle together.

“Always. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”

Kono smiles and connects a cleaning brush to one of the brass cleaning rods. “What’s your name? I don’t mean, like, give me your full name. Just- I’m pretty sure your parents didn’t name you Kanuha.”

“What gave it away?” he deadpans and Kono snickers.

“I dunno, just a feeling.”

“Pretty good intuition you’ve got there.”

They lapse into silence and Kono doesn’t press him. Everyone in the Northshore encampment has a reason to be there — poverty, health issues, free living, substance abuse, criminal past — and very few are forthcoming about what their reasons are. They may have the best view of any homeless folks on Earth, but it’s still a hard life. The one thing she’s seen is that no one there is proud of their situation. 

And besides, names _mean_ things. Kono doesn’t miss the way Kanuha’s face darkens, just for a moment, when she mentions family. He wouldn’t be the first person to leave behind a name that no longer fit or became too burdensome to carry. Maybe it’s best this way, after all, he does have a name: Kanuha.

They carefully pack up the rifle, and like a gentleman, Kanuha carries it to her car and puts it in the trunk.

As they buckle up, she says, “There’s a little shrimp truck I know that’s not far. I’ll buy you lunch.”

Kanuha smiles, but shakes his head. “I appreciate it, but I don’t like crowds. I’ll eat back at the camp.”

“Sure.”

Kono pulls away from the range and Kanuha’s omnipresent glower relaxes into something that’s almost passed for content. A mile down the road, she looks over to find him smiling; he looks almost unrecognizable. 

It hits her, then, that she’s seen little glimmers of happiness behind the blank mask Kanuha seems to always wear, but before now it hasn’t been anything substantial. Today, though, he’s made small talk, he’s cracked jokes, he’s talked to another person about something out something outside of survival; he looks more alive than Kono’s ever seen him.

She hopes that, maybe, she can convince him to come out with her again, even just to the range. Having the chance to pry a smile out of Kanuha, to say nothing of helping the other inhabitants of the Northshore camp — it _almost_ balances out the horrors of her job. As they speed down the gravel road back to the highway — Kono’s hair flying wild with the windows down — she grins, too.

*****

Work keeps Kono away from the camp the next weekend, and the weekend after that. She finally manages to slump into camp late Thursday night, with black handprints spanning the entirety of her throat, where the lawyer turned “cleaner” had tried to strangle her. 

Ben takes one look at her and points at his tent. “Sleep.”

She nods, her neck throbbing angrily at the movement, and gratefully flops down onto Ben’s pallet.

*****

Kono wakes in the morning before first-light. The four ibuprofen she took have long since worn off, and the pain is enough to drag her to wakefulness, despite the lingering exhaustion from yesterday. She gets up, silently slipping out of Ben’s tent — lying there won’t do her neck any favors, and the painkillers are in her car 

“You look like shit.”

Kono startles before she recognizes Kanuha’s voice. He’s sitting in Auntie Kalea’s lawn chair, looking out over the pre-dawn water. 

“Fuck,” she rasps, and puts her hand to her throat where everything just _hurts_.

“Sorry,” Kanuha says. “Lemme take a look at that.”

Kono drops her hand and he stands, coming to peer closely at her neck. “That’s gonna hurt for a while; the bruising’s pretty deep. Did you get an MRI?”

Kono wants to protest that she can take care of herself, but he cuts her off before she can start. “Don’t even _think_ of telling me it’s nothing. Damage like this can seem like nothing, but there’s a lot of important soft tissue in the neck.”

“Yeah,” she rasps. “Boss-man made me go. Said there’s swelling but no real damage.”

Kanuha nods. “Good. Then you’re well enough to go to the range later.”

Kono narrows her eyes at him; she’d rather sleep all day — maybe the entire _weekend,_ she hasn’t decided yet. All she knows is that tylenol needs to happen and then, somehow, she has to eat, which unfortunately involves swallowing. She’s not looking forward to it.

“I thought you were tough, Kalakaua.”

Clearly, Kanuha’s rough exterior was just a cover for the total jackass that lies beneath. What a _great_ discovery. Rolling her eyes, she flips him the bird, and stumbles off through the sand towards her car and the pain relief hidden therein.

Behind her, she thinks she hears Kanuha chuckle.

*****

It’s later that afternoon when Kanuha finds her. Normally, she’d be out with Ben picking up trash, or helping Ailani; instead, she’s lying under a palm tree with an instant cold pack on her throat. Kono watches suspiciously as Kanuha drops a notebook and pen next to her and sits. 

“We’re gonna do math.”

“I’m sorry?” 

“Math. It’s where you add numbers. We’ll start there and work up if you’re unfamiliar with the concept.”

If her neck didn’t hurt so goddamn much Kono might entertain the idea of kicking him. As it is, she settles for asking, “And why do I need math, Kanuha?”

“Marksmanship, at its heart, is based on math. There are variables to calculate — wind, elevation relative to your target, elevation relative to sea level, gravity, the rotation of the earth, the speed of your target, humidity. If you want to be a better shot, you need to understand the basics of physics and mathematics.”

Kono still hasn’t bothered to move, but she turns her head slightly to get a better look at him. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“You’re in no shape to go the range today. Might as well do something useful.”

“Recovering from a near-strangling isn’t useful?”

“I don’t buy for a second that you were nearly strangled.”

“God, you’re as bad as my boss,” she groans as she sits up.

“Eh, there are worse people to work for. Trust me.”

Something about the way he says the words makes Kono shudder. He’s not just joking, he’s offering her the tiniest sliver of what, and who, he was before. She thought she wanted to know more about him, but now she’s suddenly got doubts. 

Tension hangs between them, and the discomfort is almost palpable — so much so that Kanuha seems to stiffen, though he shows no signs of leaving. Finally, she manages to say, “Steve’s a good guy.”

Kanuha nods once, and launches into a long-winded explanation of range-finders’ benefits and limitations. Kono feels like she’s back in the academy again, her hand twitching with the need to take notes. 

They spend the afternoon tucked under the palm tree going over weather conditions and air density, while people from the camp eye them incredulously. Kono doesn’t mind — 5-0 gets its fair share of stares as it is, and she’d be side-eyeing someone if they told her a month ago that she’d be learning sniper skills from the village hermit. Even so, Kono’s really starting to enjoy her time with Kanuha, despite his slightly-terrifying skill set.

*****

“Your grouping needs work, but you hit the target on every shot. You’ve made good improvement.” 

Kono stares through her scope at the target; Kanuha is being _nice_. Her grouping — if it could be called grouping when all she did was manage to hit somewhere on the target — is total shit. Still, 150yds is a significant jump from where they started, nearly two months ago. 

“I have a good teacher.”

Kanuha chuckles, something he’s been doing more often lately. It looks good on him.

She keeps firing, working on various distances and elevations on the range, until the box of ammo is empty. Done, she gets up out of the dirt and brushes herself off as Kanuha watches, not offering her a hand up. He never does, although he takes the gun. Kono’s noticed that he never touches anyone — not just her— and she’d asked Steve about it. Steve had said that a lot of guys got weird about touch after a tour or two, for one reason or another. His advice had been that she give Kanuha the space to decide when, or if, he wanted contact. 

So, when they got the case out of the trunk and began breaking down the gun to clean it, Kono damn near jumped out of her skin when Kanuha gently bumped his shoulder into hers.

“What’s on your mind?”

Kono paused to screw the cleaning rod together. “Hmm?”

“I’m not saying you did badly today — I’m saying you could have done better, but there’s something on your mind. What’s up?”

Kono swallows and looks down at the brush in her hand. “My Auntie Mele died last night.”

“Mmm,” Kanuha says, like that makes all the sense in the world.

Maybe it does, but Kono really didn’t think she was that obvious about it. “What gave it away?”

“Oh, your shooting was actually fine. But you don’t take days off to come and pester me into going to the range in the middle of the week.”

Kono’s mouth drops open in helf-feigned indignation. “You _tricked_ me?!”

“Would you have admitted it otherwise?”

Kono huffs. “Depends, I guess.”

Kanuha nods, and his voice softens. “I’m sorry about your aunt. Were you close?”

Kono closes her eyes and smiles, the warmth of the sun on her face like the memories she’s been dwelling on all morning. “She was my favorite aunt — my mother’s older sister — and when I was little she and my mother used to tell me stories of how our people traveled to the islands on canoes.”

Kanuha listens, asking questions every so often, long after the rifle is cleaned and stowed away. As she talks, Kono feels the grief roll off her like waves. The tears that fall aren’t many, but by the end, she feels like she’s laid down a lot of the ache, at least for now.

“I’m glad you had her.” It’s probably the best thing someone could say — celebrate her life, rather than dwelling in the loss.

“Me too.” Kono agrees. She looks out over the ridgeline, high above the last of the targets, where a flock of gulls wheels away in the sky. “What about you? Did you ever have anyone like that?”

Kanuha looks down at the ground. “Yeah,” he answers quietly. “My mom. She was… amazing. My sisters; there were three of the them. There was guy I served with — we grew up together. He died over there. And then stuff happened while I was gone and when my tour ended and I got home…” He shakes his head.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s been a while. I’m used to it.”

Kono bites her tongue to stop herself from pointing out that time doesn’t heal those kinds of wounds, because there’s no way he doesn’t already know that. 

“They called me ‘Bucky.’”

“Bucky? Like that guy from the Howling Commandos?”

Kanuha — Bucky — looks momentarily uncomfortable, but he nods. “Yeah, my sisters gave me the nickname and it stuck with the guys in my unit once my friend told them. You know, sniper and all.”

Kono had hated the distance-learning history classes she had to take when she was on the circuit, enough so that she almost gave up and went for her GED. She’d forgotten entirely — if indeed she had ever actually learned it — that Bucky was the Howlies’ marksman. It strikes her as almost comical that Kanuha would have such a silly nickname; sounds like something she’d call a four year old. Not that she’s going to tell him that.

Instead, she says, “Well, you’re pretty damn good with a rifle, so I can see why it stuck.”

Bucky smiles. “You can call me that, if you want.”

“Sure thing, Bucky.”

He smiles, something less guarded and far more teary-eyed than she’s seen before. “So, did you bring lunch or what?”

Kono laughs and shakes her head as she pulls out the shrimp plates she’d bought at Kamekona’s.

*****

They’ve skinned the first of three wild pigs that were all shot by Kawika’s men, when Kono starts to fill in Kanuha on her workweek. She starts off with the basics of the case, and like most times, Kanuha listens silently. She used to take his silence as, maybe not dismissal, but indifference; she now realizes that he’s simply listening. 

“Steve is a hot mess, riding in the ambulance with Danny, panicking as Danny starts to crash. I get this group text that Danny’s having another seizure en route and they’ve had to intubate him. 

“By the time that we get to the ER, Steve looks like shit. Apparently Danny was awake, or at least conscious enough to fight back, and Steve had to help hold him.”

Kono looks over to see Kanuha’s jaw set in a firm line. “We can talk about something else.”

Kanuha shakes his head. “Tell me what happened next.”

He’s a big boy and Kono’s not going to patronize him, so she plows ahead. “Well, Jenna comes up with this idea that he’s been dosed with sarin-”

“Sarin? You’re shitting me.”

Kono shakes her head. “I wish, but no.”

“Well, how bad is he?” 

“Besides those seizures, he seems fine. Once they pushed the antidote, his breathing evened out and they took him off the ventilator. Neurology wants to do more tests but it looks like it wasn’t enough to cause any brain damage.”

Kanuha shakes his head. “That’s some serious luck. Exposure bad enough to cause seizures is usually fatal.”

Kono narrows her eyes. “And you know because...?”

Kanuha shrugs, his usual teasing smile absent. “Occupational hazard.”

“Uh-huh. You know, sometimes I really wonder about you.”

“You’re not the first,” he answers casually. With a quick tug, Kanuha yanks the hide free and tosses it in the pit that will make up the gut pile. “Does Danny have family here?”

“Nah, just his crazy ex-wife and his daughter. She’s eight. The rest of his family all live back in Jersey.”

“Shame. He could probably use some support while he recovers.”

Kono shrugs. “I don’t know. They’re releasing him from the hospital tomorrow, once neurology finishes up. Doctor thinks he’s gonna be fine and Danny insists he’s feeling okay.”

“Danny’s lying, doll.”

Kono grins stupidly at the pet name. “Let me guess, ‘occupational hazard.”

“Shit hurts. It’s worse than tear gas by a mile.”

“Mmm.” It’s the only response that Kono can come up with. Danny hasn’t mentioned anything about pain to her, and Steve seems not to be worried which means Danny hasn’t bothered him about it either. But she’s been gassed before and she felt like shit for days. If Danny feels significantly worse… She pulls out her phone and shoots off a text to Steve letting him know what Kanuha said. 

Her phone buzzes a minute later; it’s Steve thanking her for the heads up. Danny’s gonna kick her ass for this later. Well, assuming he can catch her between his bum knee and the effects of the sarin.

When she puts her phone away, Kanuha hands her several large cuts, pointing at the main camp. She nods and heads over to hand out dinner to the oldest and neediest first. It’s no one’s first choice — pretty much everyone would prefer to cook the pigs in an imu — but the camp is already pushing their luck with the small open fires they use to cook their meals. The smoke from an imu would have attract attention that the community can’t afford.

The first pig is nearly completely dressed by the time she’s done, and a stack of cuts are sitting on a mat of fresh cut palm fronds. Somehow Kanuha always seems to do things faster than she expects. That, or she’s slower than she likes to give herself credit for.

She picks up the knife she’s been using and helps finish the ribs. 

“You guys sure watch out for each other,” Kanuha comments.

Kono smiles. “Yeah. It’s like a second family.”

Kanuha smiles but the lines around his eyes show grief rather than happiness. 

“I don’t mean to pry,” she starts softly. “I know what you said about your mom and your sisters and that friend, but there’s not anyone else from back home? No one from your old unit you could call?”

Kanuha tosses the last of the carcass into the pit but doesn’t look at her. “I lost everyone I cared about. Anyone left from my last unit… they’re not worth seeing.”

“I’m sorry.”

Kanuha doesn’t reply, just pulls down the rope and trusses up the next pig.

It’s a shitty situation and one that Kono can’t help. But she counts it as a win that he was willing to even talk about it. Over a decade alone in a homeless camp is more than anyone should have to endure, and that’s a problem that she _can_ do something about.


	3. Chapter 3

“Kono! Kono!”

The sound of someone calling her name carries down the beach and out to the water where Bucky’s bringing in the morning haul. He’s surprised to hear anyone looking for her, since she wasn’t there when he went to sleep yesterday and he didn’t hear anyone come into camp during the night. Still, the voice — now _voices_ — sound worried, and he briskly makes his way back to shore.

Ailani comes running up as he breaks the surf, still in her rumpled sleep clothes. “Kanuha, have you seen Kono? Her cousin is looking for her.”

No one talks to him like this — making eye contact, standing like he won’t walk through them. No one until Kono. Maybe the others have decided he’s not dangerous, since he’s friendly with her. Maybe whatever’s happening makes them set aside their hesitations. He’s not sure.

“Kanuha, I know you can talk; you talk with her all the time. Do you know where Kono is?”

He shakes his head. “No, Auntie. The last time I saw her was Sunday.”

Behind Ailani, Ben and a Korean-Hawaiian man with a badge like Kono’s come barreling down the beach towards him. He adjusts his bag of fish so he can rest his right hand on the hilt of a knife, though he’d prefer a gun.

“Chin, this is Kanuha.” Bucky hears Ben say.

Chin nods and Bucky tries to reciprocate, but it feels stilted. “I’m looking for my cousin, Kono. The people here said that you two spend a lot of time together.”

Bucky nods mutely.

“Have you seen her?” Chin presses.

Bucky shakes his head. “I saw her Sunday when she wanted to go to the range. She left in the afternoon.”

Chin turns his head and swears under his breath.

“What’s going on?” Bucky finally asks.

“Kono’s missing. She didn’t come in to work yesterday, but we got a text saying she was taking a personal day. But when we caught a case and tried to bring her in, we couldn’t find her anywhere. I was hoping she’d have come here and turned off her phone, but no such luck.”

There’s a beat where Bucky’s brain runs through scenarios, but nothing makes sense. Kono is intensely protective of her family, including her work ohana. She wouldn’t just hide away for a few days or turn off her phone without telling someone first. When the reality of the situation settles in, Bucky’s blood runs cold.

Ben and Chin are already heading back up the beach and Bucky calls out, “I’ll help you find her.”

Chin turns and shakes his head, coming back to meet Bucky. “Kanuha, I know you’re her friend, and from what she’s told me you’re pretty skilled. But we’ve got resources that you don’t, and the authority to do whatever it takes to find her. For now, we need you to stand down, but we’ll call if we need you.”

Chin turns again to go and Bucky watches their retreating backs for a moment, before turning to the camp and handing out fish — _all_ the fish. He doesn’t have to time to cook any for himself. 

He has to find Kono.

*****

Besides the knife he’s already carrying, Bucky takes only his folding camp shovel. He heads East, away from the camp, and turns South, away from the ocean. Every so often he’s checked his cache of weapons and tactical gear, but ever since he landed in Hawaii after going off-leash, he’s never needed it. 

He paces out the steps from the palm tree he marked, drops to his knees, and begins to dig. He tries to focus on the mission — on the steps he needs to take to find Kono and to end the people who did this. But his mind keeps coming back to the one thing he can’t deny — he’s scared. 

As always, his gear bag is deeper in the ground than when he last buried it, leaving him plenty of time to marinate in his emotional turmoil. Years ago, when he first stashed the weapons and gear, he made sure it was on the leeward side of the hill. Since then, the loess and sand coming in from the ocean have covered it deeper than Bucky had anticipated. It means his things are safe, but it takes him precious time to get to what he needs; time that he could be spending on finding Kono. 

He’d never meant to get attached to anyone, and for a while, he hadn’t really needed to. The opportunity to be out in the sun and the warmth, to be near people and to _help them,_ rather than hurt them — it had been more than enough. It’s honestly more than he ever expected to have with HYDRA hunting him down. But Kono had the audacity to walk right up to his tent. To talk to him. To bring him supplies. To value the people he values. He’s been ignoring the signs for a while now, but she _matters_ to him. She’s his friend, and he’d forgotten how that felt.

He knows that doing this might mean giving up his home. He could give himself away — they could, in theory, find him, collar him, wipe him. Even so, he knows that if he doesn’t help Kono, and her people don’t get to her in time, that he’ll never be able to live with himself; he’s not sure he could even if they did. Friends help friends, they don’t cower in their tents waiting for help that may or may not get there in time.

He swallows the fear and the bile rising in his throat, and slings his kit bag over his shoulder. He’s going to find her.

*****

“Hello, this is 911. What’s the nature of your emergency?” 

“I just heard a woman screaming outside my house. She said something about 5-0 would be coming for them. It sounded like she was trying to get away.”

“What’s your address?”

Bucky gives them an address all the way out in Waimanalo. Then he sits back and waits. Two minutes later the entirety of 5-0, followed by SWAT, come running out of Iolani Palace in full tac gear, hop in their cars, and hightail it out of the parking lot. Bucky waits a minute, then walks across the lawn to jimmy open a service door on the west side of the Palace. 

All those trips to the range that began with a stop at the Palace for ammo and a rifle have paid off. It takes less than ten minutes for Bucky to gather all the intel 5-0 has on Kono’s case. 

Kono’s team might have the home-field advantage — they know the players and they know the lay of the land — but Bucky has _years_ of underworld experience. He might not know the players, but he has the playbook memorized, which is insight that he knows some cops plus a former Navy guy can’t match even on their best day.

He closes down the computer table, wipes it for prints, and slips out the back.

*****

Bucky’s not stupid; he _knows_ why HYDRA dressed him the way they did, knows that half of any fight is psychological. The metal arm, the black mask, the leather jacket — they were all part of a carefully-cultivated image, one that, apparently, floated around the edges of spec-ops community for decades and set him up to strike fear into anyone who so much as laid eyes on him. Granted, the low-lifes holding Kono hostage probably haven’t heard word one about the Winter Soldier, but the outfit will work either way. 

Still, putting the clothes on, lacing up his boots, cleaning and loading his guns, checking his knives — it all makes his skin crawl. He can hear Lukin’s voice in his head, asking if he’s ready to comply. The flat reply that follows is Bucky — _Da_ — and he nearly gags as he remembers just how many times he told Lukin and Karpov and every other _fucking_ handler that asked: _Da_.

But nothing turns his stomach quite like the mask; all those years he spent muzzled and silenced buzz angrily under his skin. He swallows as his mouth waters, a sign of the mounting anxiety accompanying his roiling stomach. 

Kono’s in a building just down the street. He’s done his recon — tracked everyone’s heat signatures, plotted the lay of the building, knows their defenses and weaknesses. He knows everything he needs to know. All he’s doing now is stalling.

He takes a deep breath, then slides the mask into place. 

They won’t know what hit them.

*****

“I need SWAT around back. Duke, we need a sniper and reinforcements up there along the road. Chin, I need you to get with-” 

The sharp report of gunfire sends Steve and every other officer on the street diving for cover.

“What the hell?” Danny shouts from behind a tree.

“Sounds like they don’t like the company,” Chin observes.

Steve shakes his head. “No, they haven’t seen us. That’s someone else.”

“Oh, great. Now Kono and all of us are caught in the crossfire between these morons and some other group of equally-stupid morons. Steve, I want to retire,” Danny whines.

Steve ignores Danny. “Duke! Does your sniper have eyes on Kono yet? What’s going on in there?”

There are four more shots that ring out, and faintly Steve thinks he can hear screaming. The silence that follows is deafening, and Steve can’t hold his ground any longer, not when Kono’s life is at stake.

“Get ready to move! We’re going in!” he shouts.

“Steven-” Danny warns and Steve can hear him gearing up to rant. His impending motherhenning is cut off when the front door of the building bangs open.

Steve leans out from his hiding place and looks up the steps. “Kono!”

“What the fuck?” Chin mutters behind him, but Steve doesn’t hang back to see what Chin’s concerned about. He bolts across the street, meeting the metal-armed stormtrooper carrying her halfway. 

“She’s alive, just weak. Dehydrated, maybe drugged.”

Steve looks back and forth between Kono and her mystery rescuer. Steve sees her pale face, the dark circles around her eyes, the way her chest seems to move only barely when she breathes. 

“We need to move,” the man states simply.

Right. Cover. Danny and Chin are beside him as they hurry everyone behind the SWAT van.

“Kanuha, what the hell are you doing here?” Chin asks.

“You know him?”

Chin nods. “He lives in the homeless camp on the Northshore. This is the guy that’s been mentoring Kono.”

Kanuha is not at all who Steve was expecting. He looks him over. All black, a face mask dangling from his fingers, a metal arm — with a red star. 

He’s the goddamn Winter Soldier.

“I always thought you were just a campfire story to scare the new recruits,” Steve says flatly.

Kanuha stares back, a mix of terror and defiance. “My name is Kanuha. I live on the Northshore. Kono is my friend. _That’s_ who I am.”

Steve isn’t about to argue, despite the way Danny is staring at him with obvious incredulity. He knows what it means to be defined by his service, and he doesn’t know enough about the Winter Soldier to make an honest judgment either way. They can sort out potential Soviet assassins later, when the people who hurt Kono have been dealt with. Besides, Kanuha saved Kono, at great personal risk; that counts for a helluva lot in Steve’s book.

“Seems like a good kind of person to be,” Steve allows.

Kanuha just stares for a moment. And Steve lets him. He clearly needs a moment to believe they aren’t going to shoot him. Kono certainly didn’t sell his trust issues short, Steve wryly notes.

The paramedics manage to make their way to Kono, so Steve, Danny, and Kanuha back off.

“Is there anyone left alive in there to talk to?” Steve finally asks.

Kanuha nods. “Yeah. I saved a couple. They’re not going anywhere though.”

“Well, you wanna find out who was behind this?” Steve asks.

Kanuha grins in a way that sends chills down Steve’s spine. “It’d make my day.”

“After you,” Steve says, motioning towards the still-open door.

*****

Bucky’s never liked torture, but like everything else, he was trained to do it and do it well. Thankfully, McGarrett doesn’t seem phased by Bucky’s methods — unlike Danny who repeatedly yells at them both. Finally, Bucky stops and turns to Steve. 

“I need him gone.”

McGarrett nods once and, after some bickering — something that reminds Bucky of another short, mouthy blond — Danny finally agrees to check-in with Chin.

“Sorry. He’s a little hot-headed,” McGarrett says when he returns. 

Bucky shrugs. “He seems good.”

McGarrett smiles and Bucky remembers wearing that smile, once, years ago. “He’s got a good heart.”

Bucky nods, pulling a taser stick out of his bag. “Back to work?”

McGarrett nods and takes the proffered weapon. “Back to work.”

*****

“Oh, you done already? Maybe you need to go back and stick some bamboo under his nails? Maybe you wanna waterboard him a little?” Danny says as Bucky frog-marches the still whimpering thug up to an HPD officer. 

“Relax, Danny. We didn’t do anything that would kill him,” McGarrett says.

“Oh, because that makes the rest of it okay. Great. Glad we have a clear understanding of human rights, Steven.”

Bucky sighs and hitches his kit bag up a little higher on his shoulder. “He’s a member of a drug cartel. He’s taking his orders from someone here on the island named ‘Michael’, which definitely doesn’t narrow it down. But they move meth that comes in from Wisconsin, which _does_ narrow it down. I’ve got names of other dealers and mid-level operators.”

All eyes land on Bucky and he resists the urge to shift uncomfortably. 

“Alright, so how do we move on this ‘Michael’?” Chin asks.

“I’ll talk to Kamekona, then see what we can get from some of the local narco informants,” McGarrett says.

Bucky shakes his head. “I wouldn’t. The more word you put out, the more likely you are to spook this guy. Plus, you don’t have the luxury of that kind of time. As soon as news of this hits the streets, he’s gonna go to ground.”

“He’s not getting off this island. I can have the word out to TSA, municipal airfields, and every port on the island in fifteen minutes,” McGarrett counters.

“That’s efficient but naive. There are plenty of private airstrips on the island and anyone who lives this kind of life has a private boat, or at least access to one. He can make it out to open ocean, then move to a bigger vessel that can make the rest of the way to the mainland. I’m not saying don’t call, I’m saying don’t count on that to catch him.”

McGarrett’s mouth presses into a tight line, but he nods anyway. “Alright, what do you suggest, Kanuha?”

“I say you burn every single connection he has here. Start with the other dealers, push his operators for information, tear everything down from the bottom up. Once he thinks his people are rolling on each other, he’ll get desperate. Let him think that you’re closing in, and he’ll panic. He’s not going to trust any of his preplanned escape routes because he’ll assume they’re compromised, so he’ll need a way off this rock, which is where I come in. No one on the island knows my face besides Kono and the folks at the camp. I’ll set myself up to provide him with the transport he needs, and he’ll run right to us.”

“Wow. That’s- that’s actually a really solid plan. I like it. Steve? Can we do his plan instead of whatever you were planning? This one seems less likely to get me shot,” Danny asks plaintively.

“You didn’t even hear my plan,” McGarrett mutters.

“True, but I know you and your plan will involve several bricks of C4 and a concussion for me. I don’t wanna do that; I’ve had enough traumatic brain injuries. I wanna do what Grumpy Cat over there wants to do.”

Bucky doesn’t think that Danny knows enough Hawaiian to get the meaning of the name “Kanuha,” and it’s mildly irksome that so many people find the epithet applicable. 

“We’re going with Kanuha’s plan, Danny. You can calm down,” McGarrett shoots back.

“Wait, really?”

“Yes really. Can we get to work?”

Danny waves his hand towards a silver Camaro down the street. “By all means.”

“Kanuha, you’re with us,” McGarrett orders, and Bucky falls in behind them.

*****

The first three stings go down without a hitch; McGarrett, Danny, Chin, and Bucky blow through the stash houses without so much as a scratch. Danny and Chin don’t seem to mind waiting outside while McGarrett and Bucky do the dirty work. SWAT and vice come in behind them to clean up. It’s efficient and effective. Bucky can appreciate that. 

But their plans to systematically destroy Hawaii’s meth trafficking establishment come to an immediate, if temporary, halt when the hospital calls.

Kono’s finally come around and the nurse on the line says that she’s insisting 5-0 come down now because she has important intel. McGarrett whips a U-turn in the middle of an intersection and their next sting is sidelined for whatever awaits them at Queen’s.

*****

Lucid might have been overstating it, Bucky thinks. Kono is conscious but not entirely there. Still, her intel is somewhat illuminating. Apparently her abduction was dual-purpose: they wanted to know where the last ice shipment that had gotten pinched ended up, and they wanted her to cough up any intel that 5-0 and vice might have. Never it let be said that drug runners weren’t thrifty with their kidnappings. 

The problem for Kono was that vice rarely coordinated normal ops with 5-0. Kono’s lack of meaningful intel didn’t win her any friends as evidenced by the cracked ribs and numerous bruises. According to the tox panel they had tried GHB in hopes that she was just great at withstanding torture, though why they chose GHB Bucky can’t guess, but they couldn’t get her to spill information that she didn’t have.

Looking at her makes Bucky sick. He knows, with no uncertainty, exactly how bad she’s feeling. He doesn’t like that someone hurt her like this, not someone like Kono, who does whatever she can to help people out. He wishes he could take the pain for her, but all he can do is catch the bastards who set all this up. It’ll have to do.

He listens from his spot on the wall as her team talks quietly with her. They offer her gentle touches, careful hugs, a kiss on the forehead. They’re her ohana. She’s said it before and now Bucky sees it, sees the way they love her and she loves them. A small, jealous part of him wishes he could have that, too. But he knows that she’s already given him more than he had any right to ask for. He’s hasn’t wanted more in a long time. He’s not sure what to do with the feeling.

“Where’s Bucky?”

It’s barely a whisper, her voice ragged, but Bucky’s eyes snap up in an instant. 

“Who?” McGarrett asks softly.

“Bucky. My friend.”

“Kanuha?” McGarrett asks pointing at the wall behind him where Bucky’s leaning. He looks surprised, almost startled, and he stares at Bucky like he’s sorting out something important. Bucky’s anxiety flares and he shifts his position in case he has to fight his way out.

Kono is blessedly oblivious to Bucky’s mounting panic in her drugged state, and it takes her a second to track to where McGarrett’s pointing. When she sees him, she smiles. “Hey, pal,” she says woozily, her hand waving a little unsteadily in Bucky’s direction. An IV line hangs from the back of her hand.

A few months ago, Bucky would be gone. “Bucky” isn’t even his name, but it’s _enough_ if the right person were to hear. But here, now… this is Kono and her people, and McGarrett already knows something, more than Bucky would like. Still, Bucky can’t imagine that McGarrett would ever put two and two together, because who the hell lives as long as Bucky has. Even so, his heart thumps wildly in his chest and it’s everything he can do to not make a break for it. They still haven’t really addressed his past and Bucky’s not naive enough to think McGarrett’s letting it go just like that.

“Come on, pal. She wants you,” McGarrett urges. His previous interest is still there, but without the intensity of only moments before. Now, he just seems concerned for Bucky. It’s not something Bucky knows how to manage.

Quickly, Bucky scans the room. All eyes are on him, but none of them reach for their weapons, or offer any sort of threat. It takes him a second, but Bucky finally pulls it together enough to be able to walk over and stand next to her bed.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” she mumbles, eyes half closed but still reaching for him.

He slips his right hand, his flesh hand, into hers, and she smiles. It’s the first time, other than carrying her earlier that morning, that they’ve really touched. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like, having someone else’s hand in his.

“Arm looked a little different without the sleeve. I didn’t imagine that, did it?”

Bucky snorts, surprised that she remembered anything from the haze of her rescue. “No, you didn’t imagine it. I was just breaking out the formal wear for you, doll.”

“So it was you who pulled me out. I thought I recognized your voice behind that creepy black mask.”

Bucky nods. “Yeah. Your friends were right outside.”

Kono smiles. “But you didn’t wait for them.”

“Yeah, alright. But they _were_ right outside.”

“Thanks. You’re a really good friend,” she says sleepily.

“They’ve got you on the good stuff, huh?” Bucky asks and beside him Danny, McGarrett, and Chin laugh softly.

“You should rest, Kono,” McGarrett admonishes. “We need to go after the rest of these guys. Sleep, we’ll be back later.”

Kono nods and squeezes Bucky’s hand. It’s everything he can do to not tear up. Or run. 

“I’ll be back later, kid,” he promises. 

Kono nods and closes her eyes. He squeezes her hand softly before letting go. When he turns, McGarrett catches his eye and smiles. 

Years of abuse and manipulation taught Bucky how to read people like his life depended on it, since it usually did. When Bucky reads McGarrett’s look all he sees is appreciation, with maybe a hint of curiosity. There’s no fear. Bucky can’t even smell it on McGarrett or even Danny or Chin. 

Bucky’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop, but now he’s wondering if there even are any shoes. Maybe, just maybe, he might get to keep something good in his life, just this once.


	4. Chapter 4

Armed with the vice squad’s latest intel, courtesy of Kono’s tip, Steve points the team towards a warehouse just down the road from a known landing site for drug runners. 

It turns out to be a trap.

The moment they step into the warehouse, someone slips up behind them and bars the door from the outside. It’s barely a moment before the gunfire starts. 

Bucky snatches Chin off his feet, depositing him behind a van. Chin sits up and stares wide-eyed at Bucky for a moment, before redirecting his attention to the folks with the guns. And there are a lot of folks with guns.

Bucky quickly scans the warehouse. There are twenty-three distinct sets of boots on the floor. He subtracts one to account for McGarrett, but not Danny since he’s wearing loafers. Twenty-two combatants is a distinct disadvantage, especially given the possibility for unenhanced casualties, namely, the members of 5-0. 

“Danny and I are gonna flank right,” Steve whispers over the comm.

Bucky knows McGarrett can’t see, but it’s distinctly the wrong way to go. “Don’t. It’s a trap.”

There’s a pause and then, “How do you know?”

“I can hear them stacking up on that side. They’re maintaining-”

“You can _hear_ them?” McGarrett asks, incredulous. “Never mind. Chin, you take Kanuha left and keep them occupied.” His tone leaves no room for argument; the order’s been given and people are already taking position. 

Maybe it’s the way Bucky tossed Chin like a sheet of paper, but he looks at Bucky like he’s waiting for _his_ confirmation, like maybe Bucky isn’t crazy for saying that he could hear them moving. Bucky taps his comm to mute it.

“Go on around back. I’ll save their stupid asses,” Bucky says.

Chin nods and heads off in a crouch. Bucky waits until Chin’s safely away from him before pissing off every drug-running moron in the warehouse.

*****

“Hey, you dumb cocksuckers! Yeah, you sonsabitches over there with the toy guns and the bad breath! Come the fuck out!” 

Steve turns to Danny, who shrugs and shakes his head. The invectives are followed by a loud clang, and Steve peers over the pallet of barrels they’re using as cover to see Kanuha striding into the middle of the warehouse floor, another barrel already sailing out of his hand.

“What the hell?” Danny mutters.

The drum lands with a bang and there’s a moment where everything _stops,_ and Steve can hear the shuffle of boots just up ahead. Kanuha was right. And now he’s in the middle of a fucking firing squad to stop the inevitable slaughter of both Danny and himself. _Fuck._

Steve has only a moment to react, and then everything explodes in a hail of bullets. Steve and Danny dive for their previous cover behind the barrels, while Chin, having actually gone where Steve sent him, lights up several of the enemy combatants. 

Safe behind a panel van — not that panel vans are well noted for their bullet-stopping capabilities — Steve peers out just enough to see Kanuha walking right into the center of the nest. Bullets slam into his kevlar vest and ricochet off his arm, and he moves through the barrage like it’s no more than a gentle ocean breeze. It’s every ghost story and spec-ops fairytale Steve has ever heard. 

This guy, who is _definitely_ the Winter Soldier, Steve decides, is literally tossing men into walls and snapping their guns into pieces with his bare hands. And, given that it is both intimidating and astonishing, all eyes are on Kanuha. Steve nods to Danny, and they slip around the side of the van, keeping low and weaving around pallets and tables to get in a more advantageous position. 

Steve knows there aren’t many bad guys left — Kanuha’s killed most of them. Even so, when he pops up and begins to shoot, he attracts a lot of attention. Unfortunately, some of that attention is from Kanuha. 

In the split second that his attention is divided, one asshole gets off a lucky shot and Kanuha’s right leg buckles. He goes down with a bitten off, “Fuck!”

“Danny!” Steve calls, pointing right.

“I can see the bad guys, Steven!” Danny shouts.

And just like that, it’s over.

Steve lets Chin and Danny clear the warehouse, securing survivors and checking for anyone they missed; he goes straight to Kanuha.

“Hey, man. You hit?” It’s a stupid question that he regrets almost immediately.

“Fucking looks like it, don’t it?” Kanuha mutters. 

There’s blood pouring from between Kanuha’s fingers where they’re clamped over the inside of his thigh. The arterial spray from the initial hit covers the floor all around them. Steve’s not even sure how Kanuha is still sitting up with that kind of blood loss; by rights he should be unconscious and in shock by now.

“Yeah, alright. Stay still. Medevac will be here soon.”

Kanuha’s eyes go wide and he shakes his head. “No. I’ll be fine.” 

Steve ignores Kanuha’s protests and fishes in his pocket for a bandage. “Yeah, you will be fine. With surgery.” 

“You know who I was. What do you think is gonna happen to me at a hospital, huh? You think they’ll patch me up and send me on my merry way? You think no one's gonna hear about the guy with the metal arm? Are you fucking stupid?”

Steve hears the desperation in Kanuha’s voice. He raises his hands and moves back from Kanuha, though he stays crouched close-by, the Israeli bandage he was unwrapping hanging from his fingers. “Hey, man. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. But if you don’t bleed out, you’re gonna die of infection. That’s what I do know. I’m not trying to get you hurt. You saved me and Danny just now. You saved Kono earlier today. I’m not trying to put you on trial for whatever else might have happened.”

Kanuha makes a ‘give-it-here’ motion and Steve hands him the compression bandage. Steve watches while Kanuha wraps and twists, cinching down the dressing over his bullet wound with more force than Steve could imagine applying to any wound of his own. Wound dressed, Kanuha staggers to his feet.

“You finish this. Find Michael. Take care of Kono.” 

Danny and Chin pull up short, blocking Kanuha’s way out of the warehouse.

“You need to take it easy,” Chin admonishes.

“I saved you for Kono. Don’t make me take it back,” Kanuha warns.

Steve sees Danny flick off the safety on his weapon, and holds up his hand to stay him.

“Kanuha, I know someone who can help. Off the books. No hospitals, no records. Just let us help you.”

Kanuha looks unmoved by the offer and takes a few uneasy steps towards the backdoor which is, presumably, not locked from the outside. It occurs to Steve that Kanuha may not actually need the medical help given his obvious enhancements, but he stores that thought away for later.

“I’d hate to have to tell Kono you didn’t take care of yourself. She’d be disappointed.”

Kanuha pauses and then turns back. “If you trick me, I’ll kill you. Even hurt like this, it won’t be a problem.”

Steve isn’t exactly surprised by the threat, nor does he doubt its veracity. “Yeah, well, you won’t need to. Now come on.”

Kanuha watches Steve approach, and looks only slightly dismayed when Steve slips an arm around his waist to take some of his weight.

“Goddamn. You’re solid,” Steve remarks.

“Poi,” he says, and Steve laughs.

*****

Bucky shakes his head. “No IVs.” He’s been around this particular block once or twice, and IVs are the fastest way to being pumped full of shit that has nothing to do with what he needs and everything to do with what someone else wants to do with or to him. 

The little Japanese man looks concerned and determined. “Mr. Kanuha, you have lost a significant amount of blood. Also, I need to treat your wound which will require significant surgical intervention. It’s going to be quite painful. Fluids, antibiotics, and painkillers will greatly benefit you both during this process as well as during your recovery. I cannot emphasize their value enough.”

“No.”

McGarrett sighs and sits on the chair by the kitchen table where Bucky’s laid out. Bucky’s stripped to his underwear and hooked up to a portable EKG. His favorite time to have arguments with pig-headed people named Steve is _definitely_ when one of them is injured and stripped down to their skivvies.

“Max, will you give us a minute?”

“Certainly, Commander. Let me know if his vitals change.”

“Yeah, will do.” McGarrett waits until the door to the lanai clicks shut behind Max and then turns back to Bucky. “Look. I’m going to take a wild guess here, but you’re name isn’t Kanuha. It’s not Bucky either. See, I took a lot of military history classes at Annapolis, spent a lot of time learning about World War Two. My grandfather went down on the Arizona in Pearl Harbor. So learning about the War is kind of a hobby of mine. 

“But anyone who learns about the War also learns about the Howlies. So when I first saw you, I thought I recognized you, but I couldn’t quite place it. Then Kono called you ‘Bucky,’ and I knew it wasn’t just a nickname because you’re a sniper. 

“I mean I know they said Rogers was the only one, but that’s never how the government works. You were one of them, weren’t you? One of the super-soldiers? That’s how come you’re still alive after all this time. It’s how you can throw a fifty-five gallon drum like a baseball.”

Bucky swallows and shifts involuntarily. “Steve was the only one.”

McGarrett looks doubtful but nods. “Alright, Kanuha, look. My point here, is that you were one of the good guys, alright? One of _our guys,_ and I don’t know what happened between that train in the Alps and now, but that’s still you. You’re still fighting the good fight, you’re still helping the people around you, even when it puts you in danger because that’s who you are, that’s who you’ve always been.”

The thought of someone knowing anything about who he is is terrifying. “You don’t know who I am and you sure as hell have no idea about the things I’ve done,” Bucky growls and pushes himself upright.

McGarrett nods and looks down at his hands. “We all did things in war that we’re not proud of. I wake up thinking about those things more nights than not, but-”

Bucky begins peeling the leads off his chest and then tugs at the blood pressure cuff. “But nothing,” he says quietly. “They turned you into a soldier because you asked for it. They turned me into a weapon because they could.” He turns his left hand over, flexing it so that the plates recalibrate in a ripple all the way up his arm, and then he locks eyes with McGarrett. “Don’t confuse the two.”

It takes a second, but slowly the understanding of what Bucky isn't saying must seep into McGarrett’s brain, because his face pales. He seems caught between outright horror, outrage, and pity. “You’re right, Kanuha. I don’t know what that’s like. I’m not trying to tell you how you should handle your past. All I’m trying to tell you that no one is coming. I know, I’ve _known,_ and I didn’t tell anyone. And if I were going to call someone, I wouldn’t have said anything to you first.”

Bucky stops, not all the way off the table, and rests on the edge. 

“No one is coming,” McGarrett repeats, and it almost sounds like he means it. 

Bucky desperately wants to believe him. He knows that McGarrett isn’t a good enough liar to trick him, but his life here, his memories, _who he is_ — all of it rides on his freedom, and that freedom lies mostly in McGarrett’s hands at the moment. The choice to trust is terrifying.

“If they get me again-”

“Who? If who gets you?” McGarrett presses.

“HYDRA.”

“I thought-”

Bucky laughs, angry even to his own ears. “You thought wrong.”

“Fuck.”

They sit in silence for a moment, McGarrett probably processing the news that his grandfather died in war that didn’t win what he was told, and Bucky letting it sink in that maybe McGarrett wouldn’t sell him down the river if he were to let this Max guy sew up his leg. 

“I’ll make you a deal. You let Max fix you up, and I’ll make sure you don’t feature in anyone’s reports from today.”

“You were going to do that anyway,” Bucky accuses.

McGarrett smiles. “Maybe.”

Bucky narrows his eyes. “Alright, so what do you get from it?”

“You tell me about HYDRA. Those bastards killed thousands of US troops during the war. If they’re still around-”

“They are.”

“-then I want to take out every last one of them.”

“You sound a lot like another Steve I used to know,” Bucky answers.

The grin he gets in return is all teeth and full of murderous promise. HYDRA’s gonna regret pissing this guy off, Bucky can tell.


	5. Chapter 5

“Hey.”

Bucky blinks his eyes open, and there’s Kono, listing a little to the side while Chin keeps a strong grip on her hip.

“Hey, yourself, kid.”

Chin helps her over to the chaise lounge next to Bucky and gently deposits her. “I’ll be back in a little while. Steve and Danny are interrogating Michael now. We think we can get him to roll on his people in Wisconsin as well as everyone else here on the island.”

Bucky nods and relaxes fractionally more. It’s done. Kono’s safe, and McGarrett _will_ make sure this guy pays. 

“Call me if you need anything,” Chin says. As he goes, he smiles warmly to Bucky. He’s not really sure how to feel about all these people who suddenly seem to like and care about him.

When the door closes, Kono turns to him. “I heard, about what you did for Steve and Danny. Thank you.”

“You seem to like them. I figure they’re not all bad.”

Kono snorts. “They’re alright most of the time.”

Bucky scratches around the wound on his thigh; increased healing factor also means increased itching. 

“Painkillers?” Kono asks pointing at the IV still attached to his right hand.

Bucky shakes his head. “Nah, just fluids and antibiotics.”

“Steve said it took some work to convince you to let them give you anything.”

Bucky shrugs. “What can I say; I’ve got trust issues.”

Kono laughs. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Shut up,” Bucky says, but there’s no bite. It feels like ages since he was able to really joke and play around with someone like this. It’s… good.

Bucky lets himself doze in the warm shade of the lanai. It’s nice out — it’s always nice out — and he relaxes in the knowledge of a job well done. A job well done for the right reasons, more accurately. It’s been a while since he’s felt the satisfaction of helping like this, of belonging to someone more than himself. 

He realizes that for a while, the camp was as much as he could do — no talking, no touching, no needing to be anyone that he wasn’t being for himself. And in time, he took on extra responsibilities, but silence had already become his default, and overcoming the inertia to start speaking with them seemed impossible. At least it was when he would have had to put in the work of talking alone. 

Fifteen years to learn to live again had been enough to make him fully human again, he thinks. But he knows he could have ten times that and it will still never be enough to erase the hurts.

“Steve said you made a deal with him.”

Bucky readjusts himself on the chaise lounge. “Yeah, I’ve got information he wants.”

Kono’s brow knits up and she stares a Bucky for a moment. “Really?”

Bucky huffs a laugh. “Yes, really.”

She leans back and turns her gaze out to the ocean again. “Alright. So when-”

“Tomorrow.”

“You’re gonna hang around that long?”

“What? You think I’m gonna limp back to the Northshore when McGarrett promised to grill me a steak tonight? Fat chance.”

Kono shifts, grimacing as she does. “No,” she says, sounding a little winded from her exertions. “I think you’ll limp back as soon as everyone goes home and goes to sleep.”

“Nah. I’ll be around.”

“Great. We can convalesce together.”

“You got weird ideas about what sounds enjoyable.”

Kono laughs, her voice tired but clear and for a moment the thought that he could have lost her sweeps over him like a tidal wave, drenching him in unrealized grief. 

“You got weird ideas about a lot things, Bucky. I don’t think that you’re in any position to judge.”

“Yeah, probably not.”

The conversation segues into silence, and Bucky, against years of training telling him otherwise, lets his eyes slip closed. He’d forgotten, he thinks, what it means to live like a person. Here on the back porch, with a deck over his head, is the closest he’s come to staying somewhere with a roof since he slipped his leash. He’d forgotten the security that could bring, not to mention the comfort of amenities like electricity and running water. 

He’s reminded of the War. The Howlies would go out, sometimes for weeks or months at a time. It was hard, cold, hungry work, but those discomforts and indignities were never more obvious than when they got shore leave. Being clean, warm, well-fed, and safe threw all of those things that they had lacked, all the ways that the war had taken from them what it meant to be human, into sharp relief. Because it wasn’t just the killing — though in the end that would be the worst of it — it was that civilization was what made them different than dogs, and in war those differences pretty much dried up. 

Sitting on the lanai with all the comforts of modern life, gunshot wound not withstanding, Bucky wonders if he wasn’t missing this all the time and just forgot what it felt like. Whatever the case may be, he’s got no plans to give up what little humanity he’s found. Not when that humanity includes Kono and her team. Not when he’s only just remembered what it means to truly care for someone and be cared for by them in return.


End file.
